Chocolate: How Seeing Affects Eating

How much food people consume can be influenced by subtle cues about weight that aren't consciously perceived, according to a novel chocolate-tasting study in the journal Appetite.

The research involved two experiments in Switzerland. In one test, 95 volunteers, who ranged in age from 16 to 74 years old, participated in five-minute sessions in which they were instructed to help themselves from a bowl of chocolates and then complete taste evaluations. Just outside of the participants' range of vision was a computer screen displaying a well-known artwork.

During a tasting by 47 volunteers, the computer screen displayed an image of three extremely thin humanlike figures in an Alberto Giacometti sculpture. For the other 48 participants, the image displayed was of a Mark Rothko painting of two different-colored, horizontally arranged rectangles.

When the Rothko painting was displayed, people consumed on average 6.4 chocolates per person. That compared with 4.7 pieces of chocolate consumed when the Giacometti sculptures were displayed. The researchers said most participants didn't notice the artwork on the computer screens, according to questionnaires completed after the tasting.

A second experiment involved 78 new volunteers, ages 19 to 82, who were invited for individual chocolate-tasting sessions. Thirty-eight of the participants completed questionnaires about gender, age and weight before the five-minute tasting sessions. The other 40 people completed the questionnaire after the sessions. Chocolate consumption averaged 4.5 pieces when the surveys were done before the tasting, and six pieces when the questions were answered afterward. About two-thirds of the participants in both experiments were women.

Caveat: No gender differences were identified in the first experiment. In the second, indicating one's weight before the tasting reduced chocolate consumption only in women.

Brain size matters: Having a big head may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia as people age.

A study published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging examined brain size and dementia in 239 Swedish residents at age 85. The participants, two-thirds of whom were women, included 104 people with dementia and 135 who were cognitively normal. CT head scans were used to measure total intracranial volume, an indicator of brain size. The scans revealed the presence of white matter lesions, or damage to the brain's connector cells, which are associated with vascular dysfunction.

The average intracranial brain volume was significantly smaller in both men and women with Alzheimer's and dementia than in participants with normal cognitive skills, results showed. Also, smaller brain volume was associated with increasing severity of dementia.

Brain size didn't differ between individuals carrying a gene mutation associated with Alzheimer's and those without the mutation. Also, there was no association found between white matter lesions and dementia in participants with the largest head size.

Previous research involving younger people has suggested that larger brains have a reserve capacity that delays age-related disease processes. The latest study is the first to look at brain size and dementia in elderly people, the researchers said.

Fat and gut disorders: Saturated milk fat, a common ingredient of many processed foods, can trigger the production of harmful bacteria that disrupt the intestinal environment, resulting in colitis and other inflammatory bowel diseases in genetically susceptible individuals, according to a report in the journal Nature. Inflammatory bowel diseases are relatively new disorders that have increased over the past half century, possibly because of dietary fats in Western diets, researchers said.

Experiments conducted at the University of Chicago compared the effects on the intestinal organisms of mice from three separate diets—one that was low in fat, another high in saturated milk fat, and a third that was high in polyunsaturated safflower oil. The saturated fat content for the diets was 0.6%, 65% and 39%, respectively. The diets were fed to two groups of mice—one genetically bred to develop inflammatory bowel disease and another that was genetically normal. After 21 days, a bacterium called Bilophila wadsworthia, normally associated with appendicitis and other inflammatory disorders, was found in the intestines of mice on the saturated-milk-fat diet but not in other mice.

In the intestines of the genetically susceptible mice, the bacteria triggered an inflammatory immune response, researchers said. Over the next six months, the incidence of colitis in these mice doubled to over 60%. However, the saturated-milk-fat diet had no effect on genetically normal mice. And the two other diets—low-fat and polyunsaturated—weren't associated with colitis, the researchers said.

Bowlegged boys: Playing soccer is known to be associated with young people developing bowlegs, but there has been little research into the effect of other sports. A study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that boys who participate in high-impact sports during the growth spurt that occurs in the early teens are more likely to develop bowlegs than sedentary boys. Bowlegs can increase the risk of osteoarthritis in later life.

Researchers in Belgium assessed the knee angle in 521 schoolboys age 7 to 18. For at least three hours a week, 265 boys participated in track and field, field hockey, basketball, volleyball, tennis, badminton or squash. The other 256 boys didn't play sports. Participants were grouped by age: 7 to 9, 10 to 12, 13 to 15, and 16 to 18. Knee angles were determined using standard measurements called the intercondylar and intermalleolar (IC-IM) distances.

Knee angle was normal in both the active and less active groups of boys until the age of 10 to 12, results showed. Starting at age 13, the athletic boys had significantly greater IC-IM distance than sedentary boys, indicating a higher degree of abnormal knee alignment, researchers said. Future research should focus on prevention, they said.

Caveat: The study, which excluded girls, pooled the various high-impact sports into one group rather than investigating their effects separately. Although the study found an association between sports and bowlegs, it didn't prove a causal effect, the researchers said.

Airways and arthritis: Rheumatoid arthritis, a disabling disease that can inflame and deform multiple joints, may originate in the lungs, according to research published in Arthritis & Rheumatism. Elevated levels of rheumatoid-arthritis antibodies have been found in patients before the appearance of joint symptoms, suggesting RA has an early preclinical phase, researchers said. Lung disease is also associated with early RA.

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The study examined airway abnormalities in 69 patients from Denver and Los Angeles, 42 with RA antibodies and no joint symptoms, 15 with no RA antibodies or joint symptoms, and 12 with early RA. All the participants underwent lung-function testing and CT lung imaging. Pain, stiffness or swelling were reported in at least one joint by 50% of antibody-positive and 53% of antibody-negative subjects at the time of imaging. Of the 12 with RA, three had been previously diagnosed with asthma and three with emphysema.

Airway abnormalities were found in three quarters of the antibody-positive subjects, one third of the antibody-negative subjects, and nearly all the early RA subjects. Adjusting for smoking, joint tenderness, or previous lung disease didn't alter the findings. Of antibody-positive subjects, two developed RA within 13 months. Airway abnormalities seen in the study were due to inflammatory changes, researchers said.

Caveat: Researchers didn't analyze lung tissue from subjects. The concept that RA is generated outside the joints is speculative, they said. The study was small.

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